Chronic pain -- the emotional side effects

After writing out my physical side effect I wanted to write about how bizarre my extreme emotions are... and it makes total sense to me..  But when I try to explain it to others (even my doctors and my own mom) it seems like I am contradicting myself.  My husband seems to get it.. but I think he's just seen it day to day and realizes that I am pretty happy and also extremely frustrated and miserable at the same time.

How can someone with chronic pain... (again, I am only speaking about my OWN experience, not everyone with chronic pain and definitely not everyone with Sciatica because our symptoms are very different.) but how can I be in constant pain and feel happy?  I am not sure, really.  I think because I HAD to learn to adapt or else I would completely hate every aspect of my life. The first two weeks I was an absolute mess.  I cried non-stop and didn't know how I would ever cope.  But after two weeks of the same feeling 24 hours a day, never getting any kind of relief not even while sleeping, I didn't WANT to cry anymore.  It wasn't the way I wanted to spend my time.  My body wanted to cry and I still allow it to shed tears, but I can grieve my physical state AND be happy.  Below I give more details that I wasn't able to record because it was just getting too long (plus my kids walked in).  So below is my written version for my journals.

I want to start out my saying that I am in the best emotional shape of my entire life.  Never before have I felt so emotionally stable.  I don't know exactly WHY this is, but my guess is that I started reading emotionally healing books about a year ago and it speaks to me.  Through this process of reading and researching, I decided to become a parenting coach to help parents deal with anger or frustration.  Being a coach has probably helped me more that it's helped my clients because it allows me to practice what I teach.  And it also helps me feel like I am doing something productive.  and something, even if it's just a little, is so much more than nothing.

What I am saying is that I know I am not depressed.  I know what depression feels like.  And I just had a baby, so it would be totally normal for me to feel down or blue.  Months ago, I might describe depression as "staying in bed all day long, not going anywhere or wanting to do anything."  But now I know that is absolutely not true.  I stay in bed most of my days and don't go anywhere, and I feel pretty happy about it. If I had to rate myself on a sliding scale of how depressed I am right now, I would say that I am opposite of depressed.  I am genuinely really proud of myself and the way I am dealing with what life throws my way.  I am going more with the flow now than I ever have and it feels good to be present and accepting of this sucky situation.

Here area  few other bullet points of why I know I am not depressed.. .

• I get so excited thinking about my future, what I want to do, the books I want to read, the places I want to visit.
• My relationship with my husband is maybe the best it's ever been (but I doubt he would agree...)  I mean, we don't agree on very much (opposite personalities and very different approaches to life) but we genuinely love being around each other and we laugh a lot.
• I don't get frustrated or upset with my kids.  I mean, being in bed all day can make a person cranky but I am not cranky.  I feel bonded with my kids and we are close and I feel connected and loving towards each of them, maybe even more so than when I was not a lame mom, and by lame I mean sick.  As if I would think I am a lame mom.  jk, I am totally that too.
• I wake up with a bounce in my step.  I mean, I don't actually bounce or step.  or even get out of bed, but I wake up happy.  I still love the sunrise.  I still meditate in the mornings.  I am doing things that make me feel a ton of hope and optimism. 
• I have NOTHING on my schedule besides doctor appointments.  And nothing on my schedule used to seem so boring but it's not boring to me.  I can read.  I can talk to my kids.  I can take a nap if I feel tired.
• I am getting plenty of vitamin D and that always makes me feel good.  Sometimes when I am in the pool with my kids I will say to myself, "My life is perfect."  And then one of my kids will touch my hurt leg and I will want to scream in pain.  And then I smile at myself because I am so extreme..
• I've missed countless experiences that would normally crush me, but I don't feel crushed.  So many family things, birthday parties, mission farewells, my neices baptism and even my best friend's wedding last month.  I swore I would do whatever it took to make it to that wedding.  When my husband said I was delusional for even trying to go, I realized he was right.  And I actually had a great day with my kids instead of feeling bad about not being there.  This is really the day I knew I wasn't depressed.  
• When I try to complain about something... I literally can't think of anything else to complain about except for my health.  I mean, my list of things to be sad about is one item long. 

Here's where I move from bragging to sounding really scary and pathetic.  But I needed to preface what I am about to say with the fact that I am not insane. The emotional toll of being ill is something that has been beyond what I've ever experienced. Most of it comes when I am really, really tired but nothing I will take my mind off the pain. I would say the majority of the time is in the middle of the night, but not always.  This insanity can hit me hard on a random afternoon  when my body is so uncomfortable it feels like I am going crazy.  I will try to explain what happens at night because i think the most severe situations have been in the middle of the night when I am too tired to read but no one else is awake to talk to.

The emotional side of chronic pain makes you want to kill yourself.  And I don't mean that you rationally have reasoned to take your own life or that you are so depressed that you have nothing to live for.  I mean that your body is so completely exhausted that the only way you can think of a relief is to die.  So not every night, but way more nights that I want to count, I get suicidal thoughts.  I lay there and the pain drives me so batty that all I can think about is taking all of the pills I have and swallowing them with a glass of water.  I know I don't want to kill myself so then I will think of ways to die, but make it not look like a suicide.  Like drowning in my pool somehow or taking something untraceable or even figuring out a way to die DURING surgery and pretend it must have been the doctor's fault. Maybe I can figure out a way to just never wake up...

I realize this sounds scary, and it does scare me, so I will try to snap out of it and think of everything that makes life worth living.  Sometimes it works.  But sometimes, even when I think of my precious children and my sweet baby who NEEDS me to stay alive (obviously, I love all of my kids, but Gabriel is really the only person I am taking care of currently) so I will concentrate so hard on all that I have to live for, but there is a level of pain that is so deep that leaving behind your newborn isn't even a big deal.  Someone can feed Gabe a bottle.  My husband can marry a wife that is more compatible.  My kids are self-sufficient.  Roma wants to do her own hair and dress herself anyway.  Eden is too young to even remember.  My siblings have plenty of other siblings. My parents are so faithful and understanding and they will find peace.  Everyone dies anyway. I mean, it's an unfathomable kind of low.  It's so much deeper and darker and more lonely than I have ever felt in my life.

When I finally get some rest and snap out of these really hard thoughts, I feel a lot of gratitude.  Mostly that I was too exhausted to even get out of bed, let alone carry out any kind of crazy plan.  I know immediately when I wake up that it wasn't coming from a place of my own thinking, it was literally my body talking to itself, it's so sick of being sick.  I don't actually want to remember how dark this actually feels, but I'm pretty sure that I will never, ever, ever judge any person who kills themselves. I only have love and admiration for these people.  So much love.  And so much compassion for their loved ones who cope with the aftermath.  What a tragic mess to clean up.

Life can be extremely hard ...and it's not fair.  Bad things happen all of the time and sometimes there will never be an explanation other than life just sucks.  This is coming from a self-proclaimed optimist who tries to see the understanding in every situation.  Sometimes there is no silver lining and it's all dark rain clouds and you just need to stay in bed until the sun comes out again.  I used to think that dancing in the rain was so much more fun than hiding under the covers, but you know, cuddling up in bed and putting a pillow over your head is actually quite satisfying.

For those of you who are now worried about my well being, I do want you to know that I talk openly about those close to me, especially my husband and health care professionals.  I am not ashamed of it and I am open to all kinds of medication to help.  The doctors who I've talked to said it's completely and normal to have these kinds of thoughts with severe chronic pain.  The thing that has helped me the most is talking to others in physical therapy.  There are basically two things that we've repeated over, "I want to die" and "I want to amputate my leg." Obviously, I don't want anyone to cut off my leg and I don't actually want to die, but those two thoughts ran through my head constantly the day I went to the ER.  And they tend to come up when my pain levels can't be helped with medication or meditation or positive thoughts.

These experiences have changed me.  For the better and for the worse.  It's given me a deeper sense of empathy and compassion and it's made me more grateful. (I had 6 babies without these symptoms, lucky me!)  It's also allowed me to completely separate my PHYSICAL pain with my EMOTIONAL thoughts and well being.  It's so hard to explain, but I can be laying down in a bed or sitting on a chair and be in SO MUCH pain but also have a full on conversation with someone on the phone or in person and they won't even know what my body is feeling.  It's like I am acknowledging the pain, but not letting it control me.  Not because I am super-human or anything, but that I am so used to feeling that I can separate myself from it while also recognizing that it's there.  Okay, there is actually no way to really explain it in words, but what it is has been a total gift to me and I can HATE experiencing it while at the same time realize that it's taught me so much and it's helped me feel alive in a way that I didn't know existed.

This whole post seems like a foreign language.  You know when you write one word and it just doesn't feel like it's a real word it feels like nonsense?  That's how I feel about this entire post.  Oh well, I tried my best.

The end.

also, please don't call my mom or husband or a shrink and tell them you're worried about me.  I actually talk to them in person, so we're all good.  xoxo.